category: Top Stories

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Mixed Messages Complicate Mixed-Signal
By Brian Bailey - 26 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

Several years ago, analog and mixed signal (AMS) content hit a wall. Its contribution to first-time chip failure doubled, and there is no evidence that anything has improved dramatically since then. Some see that the problem is likely to get worse due to issues associated with advanced nodes, while others see hope for improvement coming from AI or chiplets. Fig. 1: Cause of ASIC respins. S... » read more

Distributing Intelligence Inside Multi-Die Assemblies
By Ed Sperling - 26 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

The shift from SoCs to multi-die assemblies requires more and smarter controllers to be distributed throughout a package in order to ensure optimal performance, signal integrity, and no downtime. In planar SoCs, many of these kinds of functions are often managed by a single CPU or MCU. But as logic increasingly is decomposed into chiplets, connected to each other and memories by TSVs, hybrid... » read more

Security Vulnerabilities Difficult To Detect In Verification Flow
By Ann Mutschler - 26 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

As designs grow in complexity and size, the landscape for potential hackers to infiltrate a chip at any point in either the design or verification flow increases commensurately. Long considered to be a “safe” aspect of the design process, verification now must be a focus of chip developers from a security perspective. This also means the concept of trust has never been higher, and the tr... » read more

Can You Build A Known-Good Multi-Die System?
By Ed Sperling - 18 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the challenges of designing and testing multi-die systems, including how to ensure they will work as expected, with Bill Mullen, Ansys fellow; John Ferguson, senior director of product management at Siemens EDA; Chris Mueth, senior director of new markets and strategic initiatives at Keysight; Albert Zeng, senior engineering group director at Cadenc... » read more

Optimizing Data Movement
By Ann Mutschler - 29 May, 2025 - Comments: 1

Demand for new and better AI models is creating an insatiable demand for more processing power and much better data throughput, but it's also creating a slew of new challenges for which there are not always good solutions. The key here is figuring out where bottlenecks might crop up in complex chips and advanced packages. This involves a clear understanding of how much bandwidth is required ... » read more

A Balanced Approach To Verification
By Brian Bailey - 29 May, 2025 - Comments: 1

First-time chip success rates are dropping, primarily due to increased complexity and attempts to cut costs. That means management must take a close look at their verification strategies to determine if they are maximizing the potential of their tools and staff. Using simulation to demonstrate that a design exhibits a required behavior has been the cornerstone of functional verification sinc... » read more

Executive Outlook: Chiplets, 3D-ICs, and AI
By Ed Sperling - 29 May, 2025 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss chiplets and the challenges of moving to 3D-ICs with Bill Mullen, Ansys fellow; John Ferguson, senior director of product management at Siemens EDA; Chris Mueth, senior director of new markets and strategic initiatives at Keysight; Albert Zeng, senior engineering group director at Cadence; Anand Thiruvengadam, senior director and head of AI product ... » read more

More Data, More Redundant Interconnects
By Ed Sperling - 19 May, 2025 - Comments: 0

The proliferation of AI dramatically increases the amount of data that needs to be processed, stored, and moved, accelerating the aging of signal paths through which that data travels and forcing chipmakers to build more redundancy into the interconnects. In the past, nearly all redundant data paths were contained within a planar chip using a relatively thick silicon substrate. But as chipma... » read more

From Tool Agents To Flow Agents
By Brian Bailey - 30 Apr, 2025 - Comments: 0

Experts At The Table: AI is starting to impact several parts of the EDA design and verification flows, but so far these improvements are isolated to single tool or small flows provided by a single company. What is required is a digital twin of the development process itself on which AI can operate. Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a panel of experts to discuss these issues and others, in... » read more

AI Drives Re-Engineering Of Nearly Everything In Chips
By Ed Sperling - 24 Apr, 2025 - Comments: 0

AI's ability to mine patterns across massive quantities of data is causing fundamental changes in how chips are used, how they are designed, and how they are packaged and built. These shifts are especially apparent in high-performance AI architectures being used inside of large data centers, where chiplets are being deployed to process, move, and store massive amounts of data. But they also ... » read more

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